VANCOUVER -
SHASHI KAPOOR sweeps majestically into the bar at The Coast Georgian Court
- he's wearing a long, floating shawl of raw Indian silk - and orders a
vodka and soda. ''Yes, I drink,'' the Bombay-based actor says with a
smile. ''I am Hindu. Hindus do everything. It's a way of life rather than
a religion.''

Kapoor's way of life for most of his 49 years has been show business;
he comes by the profession genetically in that his father, Prithviraj
Kapoor, was also a film star, and the first movie Shashi Kapoor saw, as a
child of 6, was a feature in which his Pop played Alexander the Great.
Four decades later, the son is at the Vancouver Film Festival with three
movies; in addition to Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, he's a reporter in a
drama about government corruption entitled New Delhi Times, and he
produced Festival, based on a fourth-century Sanskrit play.

His next project, he says well into his second vodka and soda, is a co-
production with the U.S.S.R. of a script he intends to direct, a script
based on a potpourri of ancient legends. Why the Soviet Union? Kapoor has
been a beloved star in Moscow (Russian emigre taxi drivers ask for his
autograph in New York) ever since the release in 1954 of a film called
Vagabond. (In the West, the films that accorded Kapoor the status of a
star were the early James Ivory pictures, Shakespeare Wallah and Bombay
Talkie.)

Kapoor accepted the exhausting Sammy and Rosie assignment - ''We made a
film in six weeks, 15 hours a day six days a week, that should have had a
shooting schedule of 12 weeks'' - because ''I loved the script, and I
loved the character. He's like playing Lear, he has a tremendous range of
every conceivable emotion. I loved him. He's such a bastard.''

Kapoor realizes that Sammy and Rosie is a political film, but he is mum
on the subject. ''I don't understand politics,'' he explains. ''Even in
school days, I didn't understand school politics, I just couldn't
comprehend the moves. It's like chess, either you understand it or you do
not. I think Stephen Frears, the director, has really treated the film in
a very human way.'' Kapoor does, however, take issue with those who reject
the film's vision of England as teetering on the brink of anarchy. ''I
don't think it's exaggerated,'' he says. ''I think it's real. I must also
say England is like a second home to me; five years ago, I was even a
dinner guest of Denis and Margaret Thatcher. I was so nervous I wanted a
gin and tonic, but my wife said no. I had five when she was not looking. I
found Mrs. Thatcher to be very nice, not at all frightful. Hanif, the
writer of Sammy and Rosie, dismisses the whole thing; he doesn't believe
me.''

My Beautiful Laundrette, the film that inspired Sammy and Rosie, has
not been shown in India, nor will it be, Kapoor says. ''Homosexuality is
not fashionable, it's not a problem and it's not entertaining to
Indians,'' he elaborates. ''Mind you, I'm sure homosexuality has been in
India longer than the West. Like marijuana. Sammy and Rosie might be of
interest to Indians, though. We will see.''

In terms of output, the Indian cinema is the largest and most diverse
in the world, but the single image of what constitutes a popular Indian
film is frozen in the minds of many by that amazing musical sequence in
Bombay Talkie that showcases fat Indian chorus girls wiggling on huge
typewriter keys. ''It's still like that,'' laughs Kapoor, ''and why not?
The average Indian in the villages, his income is low, his education is
low, so he's quite happy to go see something that doesn't tax his mind and
has a little fantasy. In an Indian film you have, as they say in America,
the works, probably because India is like that, extreme riches and extreme
poverty.''

While the extremes certainly exist, Kapoor feels that his country's
notorious poverty is improving. ''There's no such thing now as people
dying of a lack of food,'' he declares flatly. ''In the smallest villages,
there is always grub. I get quite incensed at this idea of starvation and
India. Some of the smaller farmers have air-conditioning and TV, you know.
You see them in the pubs, drinking bottles of Black Label.'' He pauses and
peers at his own Smirnoff. ''India is now 40 years old,'' he continues,
draining his glass. ''It is getting better. It's a great place, a terrific
place. With this new wealth of the farmers, well, I'm even trying to get
them to invest in movies.''